Run trains, send migrants home

It is welcome that the government has included migrant workers among the beneficiaries of the second tranche of the stimulus package. However, the immediate help the workers need is to reach home. The Railways’ special shramik trains notwithstanding, thousands of inter-state migrant workers continue to make the parlous journey back to their native towns and villages on foot. Many fall on the way, to hunger, thirst, accidents and exhaustion their hearts cannot bear. It is welcome that the Centre wants to give them free grain and lentils but they need cooked food and assistance, instead of the police lathi that has greeted them along the way, besides occasional bursts of human empathy in the form of help from volunteers and the local governments. Do not wait for state governments to requisition trains. Run as many trains as the track and signalling system can bear, till the migrants have reached home.

The move to make ration cards portable across the country and unbundle the card to allow individual members to buy their rations wherever they are is most welcome. The philosophy of attaching a defined benefit to the individual, regardless of his location or current job, is already manifest in the portable pension account of the National Pension System. This must be extended to health benefit and social security as well; these should not be tied to being an employee of a company, but bestowed as the right of a citizen, as Ayushman Bharat is. The move to build rental housing is most welcome. The move would boost demand and offer urban poor affordable rents and decent living conditions. Housing for all has to be redefined, in an urbanising, young, footloose nation, as affordable availability of rental accommodation anywhere in the country, rather than individual ownership.

Urban areas and industry depend on migrants, in particular, inter-state ones. How can they be brought back to where they are needed? With an influx of migrants, wages will dip in rural area, and shortages drive wages up in towns. This will bring workers back to towns, fairly soon.

This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Economic Times.